Crab Nebula, remnant of a supernova. This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.The pressure generated by this "combustion" holds the star up against the enormous gravitational force that its outer layers extert on the stellar core. The supply of elements that the star can fuse is limited, and when this runs out the star "dies": its properties change rapidly and violently, and a new astronomical object is created. Supernovae represent the most catastrophic (and picturesque!) of these stellar deaths.

Anatomy of a Supernova

Stars of all masses spend the majority of their lives fusing hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei: we call this stage the main sequence. When all of the hydrogen in the central regions of a star is converted into helium, the star will begin to "burn" helium into carbon. However, the helium in the stellar core will eventually run out as well; so in order to survive, a star must be hot enough to fuse progressively heavier elements, as the lighter ones become exhausted one by one. Stars heavier than about 5 times the mass of the Sun can do this with no problem: they burn hydrogen, and then helium, and then carbon, oxygen, silicon, and so on... until they attempt to fuse iron. Iron is special in that it is the lightest element in the periodic table that doesn't release energy when you attempt to fuse it together. In fact, instead of giving you energy, you end up with less energy than you started with! This means that instead of generating additional pressure to hold up the now extended outer layers of the aging star, the iron fusion actually takes thermal energy from the stellar core. Thus, there is nothing left to combat the ever-present force of gravity from these outer layers. The result: collapse! The lack of radiation pressure generated by the iron-fusing core causes the outer layers to fall towards the centre of the star. This implosion happens very, very quickly: it takes about 15 seconds to complete. During the collapse, the nuclei in the outer parts of the star are pushed very close together, so close that elements heavier than iron are formed.

SNR 0509-67.5, remnant of a supernova. A delicate sphere of gas, photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, floats serenely in the depths of space. The pristine shell, or bubble, is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova. Called SNR 0509-67.5 (or SNR 0509 for short), the bubble is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth.What happens next depends on the mass of the star. Stars with masses between about 5 and 8 times the mass of our Sun form neutron stars during the implosion: the nuclei in the central regions are pushed close enough together to form a very dense neutron core. The outer layers bounce off this core, and a catastrophic explosion ensues: this is the visible part of the supernova. Stars with masses greater than about 10 times the mass of the Sun meet a very different fate. The collapse of the outer regions of the star is so forceful that not even a neutron star can support itself against the pressure of the infalling material. In fact, no physical force is strong enough to counter the collapse: the supernova creates a black hole, or a region of spacetime that is so small and so dense that not even light can escape from its clutches. In this case, the details of how the ensuing explosion actually occurs have still to be worked out. Observationally, supernovae are found by patiently observing the sky and looking for bright objects where there were none before. At its peak luminosity, the supernova resulting from a single star may be bright enough to outshine an entire galaxy.

A Cosmic Cycle...

Supernovae play a fundamental role in a great cosmic recycling program. We believe that almost all of the elements in the Universe that are heavier than hydrogen and helium are created either in the centres of stars during their lifetimes or in the supernova explosions that mark the demise of larger stars. Supernovae then disperse this newly synthesized material in the interstellar neighbourhood. From this material a new, enriched generation of stars will form, and the cycle begins anew. This is how we think that the heavy elements in the Sun came to be. Since the planets in the solar system formed from leftover material in a disk around the proto-Sun, all of the heavy elements in the Earth (including those in humans!) must have come from the same source. This means that in the most literal sense, we are stardust!

How to ask a question?

If you have a question about another area of astronomy, find the topic you're interested in from the archive on the side bar or search using the below search form. If you still can't find what you are looking for, submit your question here.

Curious Minds Online

We have 4951 guests and no members online

How Many Were Here?

Total page views since 1997

96771100

Who are We?

Ask an Astronomer is run by volunteers in the Astronomy Department at Cornell University. Most of us are graduate students at Cornell, and all of us do this voluntarily, in our own time, fitting it in around our other work. Please take the time to browse our site and first try to use the resources online to find an answer to your question.